


Photographs

by Lint



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 13:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1650506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lint/pseuds/Lint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A halo above one girl's head, horns for the other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Photographs

**Author's Note:**

> Sarah and Helena grow up together.

Helena doesn't like it here.

 

She doesn't say anything, the little mouse, but Sarah knows with every dart of her eye and squeeze of the hand, that it's too new, too big, too real. The strange farm house and scary serious look on all the adults faces, despite the constant head pats and paper thin smiles. For them other countries were names on maps and pictures in books. Not places you end up after waking up in the middle of the night, suddenly on a plane for the very first time, shuffled along so quickly what's actually happening never quite registers.

 

Felix is a bottomless pit of questions, but Mrs. S just tells him to hush. This is home now. They'll learn to love it.

 

/\

 

Mrs. S makes a point of never dressing them the same. As if she can carve out some kind of individuality by sheer will alone. Helena fights and fusses, points to the exact same article of clothing Sarah chooses, conceding only to a difference in color. And Mrs. S lets it happen over and over, knowing any possible wedge between the two will just seal back up in some other unforeseen manner.

 

/\

 

It's not a big deal, the first time it happens. Sarah and Felix are messing about in the yard, climbing fences and making nuisances of themselves. Footing is lost, dirt is kissed, Sarah hitting the ground and hissing at the fresh lack of skin on her knee.

 

Helena is suddenly there, with the box of bright blue happy bird bandages Mrs. S picked up at the market.

 

“I had an itch,” she says softly, pointing at her own knee.

 

Neither realize it could mean something more than mere sisterly intuition, and Felix just looks on smiling as if it's the most incredible thing he's ever seen.

 

/\

 

The first bicycle Sarah ever has, is found unlocked behind a dumpster at McDonald's. Mrs. S is having none of this 'found' business, saying she's not one for raising thieves. But to Sarah, unlocked and left isn't stealing, if they cared about it at all it would have been secured.

 

It's questionable morality she's entirely too young for, and the row it causes will affect their relationship in a way that's forever unresolved, but in the end Mrs. S takes the bike straight back and hopes the owner is none the wiser.

 

The bike shows up in the backyard two days later.

 

S never thinks to punish Helena.

 

/\

 

A concerned teacher sends a note home. Helena doesn't interact with other children. She doesn't talk. She doesn't participate unless Sarah is willing too. She is extremely bright, but the learning process isn't simply about intelligence alone. Counseling is suggested.

 

Mrs. S discusses the content with Helena, but she is unconcerned.

 

“I talk,” is defended flatly.

 

“It can't just be us, love.”

 

Mrs. S has never seen such a serious face on a child.

 

“Only family matters.”

 

/\

 

Felix gets an art set for his birthday. Which means Sarah and Helena are made to model for hours on end. Which means pinching, tickling, and name calling. Which means Felix is rolling his eyes in frustration and dashing artistic vision with angry red streaks.

 

Third time's the charm, however, he manages a likeness acceptable to his own temperament as well as that of his sisters. When the two waltz off arm in arm, finally free of their obligation, Felix flicks the brush across canvas for one last touch.

 

A halo above one girl's head, horns for the other.

 

/\

 

Mrs. S takes them to a shooting range. Never knowing when you might need to use a gun, the odd cryptic reason for the lesson. Sarah's always been good at smelling bullshit, wants to call S on it so badly, but something in her eyes goes cold when a trigger is pulled and she's too afraid to do so.

 

Felix abhors the weight of the thing in his hand, fires off a couple of shots to placate his foster mother, and promptly walks away to wait in the car.

 

Sarah displays an aptitude that can be made better with practice, managing to hit the target several times, though nowhere close to dead center.

 

Helena is a natural. Scarily so. Instinctively controlling her breathing, taking aim, and firing a shot damn near between the eyes.

 

/\

 

High school is hell enough for anyone. But when you're gay, crazy, and a delinquent no one is doing you any favors. Being orphans on top of that? They walk through the halls with bright flashing kick me signs.

 

Felix ignores it as best he can, falls in with the other art kids and other outcasts, slings and arrows embraced and rebuffed with a similar mindset.

 

Helena lashes out. Gets in fights. Gets suspended. Only her academic standing keeps her from being expelled.

 

Sarah learns to lie. Does it well. Her moral compass already a bit questionable, she becomes what people want her to be and uses it against them.

 

Trouble in triplicate.

 

It's a reputation that sticks.

 

/\

 

Helena dates the Ukrainian foreign exchange student all of sophomore year, learns the language in less than two months, and from that day on it's sestra this, sestra that, and sestra na akhtemni dni.

 

/\

 

Sarah dyes a bright blue streak into her hair.

 

Something that Helena recoils in horror from. Throwing a tantrum in the middle of their room as if she was five years old. Not because she hates it. Not because it's ugly. Because they no longer look the same.

 

Sarah laughs at this, can't help it, at the age where individuality is aching to break free. Only when Helena's tears manifest, does she see how much it matters to her. But that doesn't change her mind. The streak stays.

 

The next day Sarah comes home from school and finds Helena on the bathroom floor, hair now billowing out of her head in a frizzy bleach blonde mess. She doesn't laugh this time, only sinks down next to her sister, head falling on her shoulder.

 

“It looks good,” she fibs.

 

/\

 

The first boy Felix ever loves is a stereotypical closeted jock, who breaks his heart in embarrassing fashion, left half naked and freezing in the woods. Gossip is spread, pictures exist, and Sarah swears revenge.

 

She follows the bastard for three days. Learns his schedule, locker combination, and home situation. She scores drugs, pornography, and plans to plant evidence. To embarrass and destroy.

 

But Helena, all five feet hundred and nothing pounds of her, breaks captain asshole's arm in two places. Leaves him begging and bloody and their brother's feet.

 

Helena is finally thrown out of school.

 

No one bothers Felix ever again.

 

/\

 

Helena kills a man.

 

Head shot. Right between the eyes.

 

One of Sarah's marks. One she couldn't talk away. He leaves her bruised and beaten, shaking and trying to clean herself up when Helena comes home from University, demanding a name and where she can find him. Sarah says it's nothing. Sarah says she can handle it. Helena doesn't ask again. She goes to the hideaway in the basement Mrs. S still thought secret, wraps the rifle in an old piece of canvas and tracks him down herself.

 

/\

 

Sarah gets in too deep again. Has to run away for awhile. Helena insists on going with her, and nothing she can say will convince her not to. They leave Kira with Mrs. S., kiss Felix on both cheeks, and make their way for parts unknown.

 

It's a solid year of never staying in one place longer than a week, crisscrossing the country several times over like hobos of old, until the magic message Felix leaves on a burner phone voice mail saying the heat has died down.

 

The train rolls along the tracks, Sarah dozing against her sister's shoulder, when a sudden jolt shakes her awake.

 

“Shit!” she exclaims to the admonishing face of a woman with child across the way. “Sorry.”

 

“Almost there,” Helena says quietly.

 

Sarah tries her best to smile.

 

It's a cold night, both she and Helena pull their coats a little tighter as they make their way across the platform, when they catch sight of a woman with an eerily familiar face.

 

 

 


End file.
